Microsoft Outlook 2007 Review

Office Outlook 2007, a part of the Microsoft Office suite of applications (but can also be purchased separately) is the suite's business and personal communications/collaboration client for connecting to Microsoft Exchange installation or external Internet based POP3 email providers like Yahoo Mail, EarthLink Mail Gmail, Hotmail, etc. 

But Outlook 2007 is also a very robust (stand-a-lone) contact manager allowing you to schedule meeting, create a To-Do Task List, keep track of contacts, create Notes, and keep a running record of documents and emails via Journal.  From very humble beginnings, Microsoft has turned Outlook into the must-have Contact Manager.         

My Viewpoint

I could not live without Outlook.  It has my contact, scheduling, and email all in one place, and it seamlessly connects with Microsoft Exchange as well as POP3 and Internet-based email programs.  And this version of Outlook makes connecting to those email addresses (almost) effortless by ferreting out your connection information by providing your email address and password.  

I like the fact that I can retrieve email from an Exchange server and POP3 accounts in the same mailbox; it makes managing my many email accounts a much simpler affair.  Not only that but I can also create a separate signatures for each email account and choose which I want to use when sending or responding to mail. 

Outlook now incorporates Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds into the program.  Granted out of the box, most of the feeds are from MSNBC sites, but they can be customized. 

Synchronizing my Palm 700W is not an issue with Outlook 2007.  Windows Vista has built-in Active-sync software that automatically recognizes my Palm and syncs it with Outlook.  And since my mailbox is on my Exchange server, I can share it between computers, and with Outlook Web Access (OWA), I can access my Outlook mailbox from the Internet.  Note: you have to have an Exchange server in order to utilize OWA.         

Conclusion

Outlook 2007 represents a huge leap forward in the areas of contact management, Email communications, and scheduling.  Although the interface may look the same as Outlook 2003, this facade is deceptive, because underneath the skin lies a whole new application.  It alone is incentive enough to upgrade to the new Office 2007, but like I stated above Outlook can be purchased separately.  When paired with Exchange 2007, and the Unified Messaging topology, Outlook 2007 more than out-performs any other contender.